Introduction to

Information Technology

BBA-III

IMS University of Peshawar

 Course Objectives
 Computer is one of the most advanced and fast growing technologies
of the world. Each and every day a lot of improvement is emerging in
both Software and Hardware of the computer.

 In response to this trend this course has been designed.

 It focuses on brief Introduction to Computers History and Types

of computer, the Basics Concepts of Computer Software,
Hardware and Input/Output Device, Basic aspect of Information
Technology, Social Impacts of Information Technology and
Policies.

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 Week-1

 Introduction
 Introduction to IT
 Computer
 Organization of Computer
 Brief History/Generations

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 Information Technology
 First you have to understand the differences between science,
engineering & technology.
Science is a systematic & specialized way of thinking. A scientist thinks &
makes principles & hypothesis.
hypothesis

Engineering means the practical implementation of principles & hypothesis

for the welfare of human beings with the help of machines. At first he
makes drawings on the basis of principles, and then take it to real world
for use.

Technology always deals with OPTIMIZATION (MAXIMUM GAIN WITH

MINIMUM EFFORTS) with the help of newer supports like computers &
transfer machines.
The aim of IT is to make our information more profitable by making it
recently & attractive.
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 Information Technology (Cont’d)

 Information Technology is the application of Computers towards organizing

and efficient retrieval/reporting of information.

Information Technology refers to the creation, gathering, processing,

storing, protecting, presenting and dissemination of information using ,
hardware, software and telecommunication technology.

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 Computer
 The word computer comes from the Latin word “computa” which means
“to calculate”.
 A computer is normally considered as calculating machine that can
perform arithmetic operation at a very high speed.

An electronic device which is capable of performing series of arithmetic

and logical operations at a very high speed is called computer.

 It is not only a machine which perform different functions on numeric

data but today more than 80% work perform by computer is non
numeric in nature.
 Nowadays computer is used for multiple purposes.

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 Computer (Cont’d)
 So what will be the more elaborate definition of computer??

Computer is an electronic device which takes certain input (Data),

manipulate that input (Process), store it in memory or storage devices
and then gives the desired results (Output).

 All computer processing requires data, which is a collection of raw

facts, figures and symbols, such as numbers, words, images, video and
sound, given to the computer during the input phase.
 Computers manipulate data to create information with the help of
CPU.
 Information is data that is organized, meaningful, and useful.

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 Computer (Cont’d)
 Memory is an area of computer which holds data that is
 Waiting to be processed, Storing or output
 The information can also be put in computer storage for future use.
 During the output Phase, the information that has been created is put
into some form, at output devices.

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Computer Organization

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 History of Computer
 The history of computer is very old, long and fascinating.
 Many books exist that detail the history of computers in many more details
that what we can do in this course
 We’re going to proceed in “generations”
 Nobody is in perfect agreement about these generations
 But they are a convenient way to organize the history of computers
 People disagree about the “first computer” as well

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 Generation 0: Mechanical Calculators
 The first computer was developed approximatly
3000 BC.
 It was named as Abacus.
 Available in many cultures (China, Japan,
Greece, Rome, etc)
 It was used for calculations.

 In 1642, Blaise Pascal invented a mechanical

calculator called the Pascaline
 Additions, subtractions
 Survived in some shape or form until the early
20th century
 The numbers (0 – 9) were marked on
circumference of small wheels which were
connected by gears.

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 Generation 0: Mechanical Calculators
 In 1671, Gottfried von Leibniz extended
the Pascaline to do multiplications,
divisions, square roots:
 None of these machines had memory, and
they required human intervention at each
step.

 In 1822 Charles Babbage, sometimes called

the “Father of Computing” built the
Difference Engine
 Machine designed to automate the
computation of polynomial functions (which
are known to be good approximations of
many useful functions)
 Implements some storage
 All internal and temporary, the user
doesn’t store anything.

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 Generation 0: Babbage
 In 1833, Babbage designed the Analytical Engine
 It was much more general than the difference
engine, and could in theory perform “any”
mathematical operation
 This is really the first machine that somewhat
resembles our computers
 An arithmetic processing unit
 A memory
 Input/output devices (punched metal cards)
 In 1886 the American William introduced the
first commercially successful mechanical adding
machine.

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 Generation of a Computer System (Cont’d)

 In 1930, Analog computer were introduced.

 In 1944, H. Aiken at Harward University USA, developed Mark-1.
 It was the first digital computer from IBM.
 Which spanned 51 feet in length and 8 feet in height. 500 meters of
wiring were required to connect each component.

 If we consider the Generation 0 of computers till 1944, then

computer were mainly special purposes. They were usually designed
to do calculation work.
 After 1944, people concentrated on the development of general
purpose computers which could be used for multiple tasks which are
discussed as follow.

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Generation of a Computer System (Cont’d)

 First Generation (1946-59)

 Second Generation(1957-64)

 Third Generation(1965-70)

 Fourth Generation(1970-90)

 Fifth Generation(1990 till date)

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 First Generation
 The first general purpose computer of this generation was
constructed in 1946, at the Moore School of Engineering of the
University of Pennsylvania, USA by Prof: Presper Eckert and John
Mauchly.
 The name of that computer was ENIAC.
 Work on ENIAC started in 1943 and the project was completed in
1946.
 In this computer system Vacuum tubes were used. These tubes were
very large in size, due to which the size of computer of that
generation was large.
 A device to amplify, switch, or modify a signal
(by controlling the movements of electrons)

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 First Generation (Cont’d)
 ENIAC Specs
 Containing 17,468 vacuum tubes
 Occupying 1800 sq ft
 Weight 30 tons
 Consuming 174 kilowatt of power
 1,000-bit memory
 Punched card

 It was faster than any of the previous

special purpose computers.
 It could do nuclear physics
calculations (in two hours) which it
would have taken 100 engineers a year
to do by hand.
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 First Generation (Cont’d)
 ENIAC was decimal rather than binary. i.e. number were represented in
decimal system rather then binary system.
 Arithmetic operations were also performed in decimal form.
 Its memory consist of 20 accumulator (registers). Each accumulator
was capable of holding ten digit numbers.
 Each number was represented in ten vacuum tubes.

 The second computer of this generation was EDSAC prepared by Prof:

Maurice Wilks in 1949.
 Those computers were the fastest calculating device of that time, but
the size of those computers were large because of electronic tubes.

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 Needs for ENAIC

 United States Army Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL) was

responsible to develop range and trajectory tables for new weapons.
They were facing difficulty in supplying these tables accurately and
timely.
 John Mauchly and John Eckert proposed the idea of ENIAC to meet
the requirements of BRL for the development of new weapons.
 Second World War (WWII) ended before its completion.
 It helped BRL in determining the feasibility of Hydrogen-Bomb
(Atomic Bomb) by solving complex equations.
 It was used by BRL for the first time in 1955.

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 Second Generation
 In second generation a new device was discovered, which is called
transistor.
 Transistor is a small electronic device used in computers, radios, televisions,
etc for controlling an electronic current as it passes along a circuit.
 Transistor were prepared by a British Scientist William Shockly. These
transistor were able to move an electronic charge.
 Lower power consumption, smaller, more reliable, cheaper, much lower heat
dissipation
 During this generation two programming languages were prepared. i.e.
 FORTRAN which prepared in 1956 by an American Scientist John Backus.
 COBOL which was prepared by an American women Grace Hopper in 1959.
 Computer of second generation are smaller in size then 1st generation
computer.

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 Second Generation (Cont’d)
 IBM
 IBM7094: For scientific application (1962)
 IBM1401: For business applications (1959)

 In 2nd generation,
 Increase the performance and capacity was found
 Lowered cost
 Speed increase as well
 All this improvement was the result of use of transistor in place of vacuum
tubes.
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 Third Generation
 In this generation microelectronics were introduced which was the
invention of Integrated Circuits (IC’s).

 The 3rd generation was based on IC technology.

 IC is a small Microchip that contains a large number of electrical
connections and performs the same function as a larger circuit made from
separate parts.
 IC was an advance electronic technology, when a large number of
circuit elements are integrated into a very small surface of silicon
known as “Chip” then it is called an IC.
 IBM System/360 were the first computers to be built entirely with
ICs.

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 Third Generation (Cont’d)
 Computer of 3rd generation is smaller in size as compared to previous
generation computer.
 Maintenance cost was low because the chance of hardware failure was
minimum in those computers.
 The disadvantage of 3rd generation computer was, a very costly
technology required for the manufacturing of IC chip.

 Cray-1: $8.8 million, 160 million instructions per seconds and 8

Mbytes of memory
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 Fourth Generation
 Improvements to IC technology made it possible to integrate more
and more transistors in a single chip
 In 1975 SSI, MSI, LSI and VLSI circuits were used at the place of
IC’s. They are also a single silicon chips.
 SSI (Small Scale Integration): 10-100
 MSI (Medium Scale Integration): 100-1,000
 LSI (Large Scale Integration): 1,000-10,000
 VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration): >10,000
 The important point is that with VLSI it became possible to have a full
CPU on a single chip, also called a microprocessor
 The first microprocessor was created by Intel in 1971

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 Fourth Generation (Cont’d)
 So 4th generation computers are those which uses LSI technology, due
to this technology the size of computers becomes very small but
highly costly technology is required for the manufacturing of LSI
chips.
 With the advent of microprocessors it became possible to build
“personal computers”
 1977: Apple II
 1981: IBM PC

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 Fifth Generation
 The computers that used today belongs to the fifth generation
computers which performs parallel processing, multi-tasking
simultaneously.
 Voice recognition
Artificial intelligence
Natural languages
 Computers of fifth generation are nearly capable to behave like
human beings.
 These machine are usually equipped with a large main memory.
 Software and hardware components have become cheaper
 The size of computer in 5th generation has become surprisingly small.

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